April 21, 2006

Dissing Hu

by emptywheel

The most uncomfortable moment in my business travels in Asia over the last few years came last April, when I was working with a classic ugly American in Beijing. After a long speech to our Chinese hosts about how he sincerely wanted China to be more like the United States, said ugly American made a toast, to Hu Jintao and George Bush. All questions of political affiliation aside, I couldn't imagine toasting George Bush publicly, in China, particularly not after that appeal. I sheepishly drank to Hu, complimenting his leadership and intelligence. Then continued to drink away my shame at the obtuseness of Americans who don't pay tribute to the pride of countries that have thousand-year histories of greatness.

Well, I needn't have left the US. I could have waited for Hu Jintao to come here, to be dissed repeatedly by the archetypal ugly American. Dana Milbank documents the atrocities, ranging far beyond the public heckling Hu received from a Falun Gong practitioner (and FWIW, an outbreak of free speech from a group with human rights complaints against China is an embarrassment I'm more willing to forgive than the protocol violations).

But he wasn't okay, not really. The protocol-obsessed Chinese leader
suffered a day full of indignities -- some intentional, others just
careless. The visit began with a slight when the official announcer
said the band would play the "national anthem of the Republic of China"
-- the official name of Taiwan. It continued when Vice President Cheney
donned sunglasses for the ceremony, and again when Hu, attempting to
leave the stage via the wrong staircase, was yanked back by his jacket.
Hu looked down at his sleeve to see the president of the United States
tugging at it as if redirecting an errant child.

The thing is, I'm wondering if this isn't all intentional, if China and the US aren't engaging in a giant pissing match bound to end up badly. Recall, for example, that Bush suffered from an embarrassment similar to Hu's, when the Chinese President walked down the wrong staircase. Bush tried to exit the wrong doorway after speaking in Beijing, only to find it locked; Bush clowned away, heightening the embarrassment. The episode, complete with the image of what appears to be the Forbidden City in the background (click through to Atrios' to see the full series), struck me as an intentional slight, to keep the American President off balance. And there were the reports that Bush emerged from his one-on-one meeting in China with Hu, ashen faced, as if Hu had just given Bush the lesson in global economics that his advisers had prevented, thus far, from breaking through the Presidential bubble. Viewed in that perspective, the gaffes Hu suffered here seem more intentional, an awkward attempt to return the disfavor.

Unfortunately, this kind of gamesmanship doesn't serve US interests. Assuming it can find the oil supplies to fuel its continued growth, time is on China's side. It will have the luxury of deciding when to cut off our allowance. And it will have the luxury to build alternative trade partnerships, while our economy continues to hemorrhage capabilities and jobs.

I've said this before; China (and Hu in particular) is a master at using diplomacy to advance its goals. Our recent wooing of oil-rich dictators suggests Condi has recognized how far behind we have fallen in the game of influence. But it doesn't serve our interests at all to get into a pissing match with a nation with a millennium of experience in such diplomatic games. We're not very good at either protocol or the abuse of it, and it's only going to ruin our chance to find a way to gracefully dismantle the house of cards that our economy has become.

On Diane Rehm today, that point was made explicitly--that Hu is working through executives to smooth the way with the US government (and the public). So you start your visit by dropping some cash with Boeing and talking nice on IP with Gates, addressing the issues you know will come up later directly. Of course, what does it say about our diplomacy if the real important visits are to businessmen, not elected officials. Is Hu going to visit UNITE? Because if he's not (and no, he's not), then we need to make sure our government retains the upper hand in this diplomacy.

Try as I might, I have been unable to find a guide book for the proper etiquette of a heckler. I decided I would come up with my own list of the do’s and don’ts of heckling. I’ve also provided some novel suggestions.

Don’ts:

1. When you determine it is time to begin heckling, do not raise your hand in hopes of being called upon.

The contrast is evident in the extreme when our two civilizations arrive after much arduous work, at that defining moment in human history when Americans have excess leisure time, and mainland Chinese must cope with spread of opulence.
Perhaps the Bush-Door vignette had a historical cast, in politics of the time of the US Open Door policy, which impacted China.
We have come a long way, and much is invested. I am glad the Bush administration has learned from the sorry lessons of the Reagan bunch: now Bush plans to invest in tech R+D; Reagan gave us a trade barrier with Japan microchips, in a protectionist measure which effectively rendered WYSIWYG workstations the exclusive property of business and the wealthy, and retarding development of software until the 'graymarket' manufactured sufficient imported computers here that the trade policy was ineffective, a ten-year setback.

I have called you a Goddess of the internet, and I still feel that way. Your reporting is great, and good Lord, the Bush Monster did not represent us well.

I will split hairs with you a little as I am something of a naive optimist: Bush is an idiot, and yes, the Chinese have centuries of experience over the majority of Americans as to diplomatic games. That said, we have within our population the people with the skills to make things right. We just need to put the call out to them.

Emptywheel, I had not given thought to whether the door episode in China was staged. What a brilliant trick. (Do you know how the President was led onto stage? I assume he didn't know about the back exit.)

I love the notion of Hu breaking through Bush's Presidential bubble on the last visit, and again apparently on this one. Bush thanked Hu for his "frankness," but it almost sounded ominous. I am particularly intrigued by your invocation of the tectonic, long-view approach of Chinese civilization, which is in some ways seems China's own sense of eminent domain; I wonder if you would agree with that characterization. China is confident in its dominance. But the reality of our country's debt to China (and the punishing specificities of China's ongoing and increasing economic dominance over us), well, that's almost too much for me to contemplate. Hu doesn't need to say that the market will exert its own cruelty over our imperial ambitions. Isn't that the shut door?

That Dana Milbank article is a gem. How the hell did that Falun Gong protestor, who heckled Jiang five years ago in Malta, get a White House press credential?

How the hell did that Falun Gong protestor, who heckled Jiang five years ago in Malta, get a White House press credential?

Well, I've suggested that the sheer number of vetting "mistakes" probably mean they weren't mistakes at all. Could this heckler be the same?

I don't know how Bush was led onstage in China. But boy, it seems like the kind of thing you'd do to an obviously outclassed rival. I mean, I'm not all that devious. But if I were fighting for world domination, I might try something like that.

I agree with you, Emptywheel, that the Chinese (and Hu in particular) are masters of diplomacy. One need only look at the results, world-wide, of their diplomatic efforts. The most important U.S. counterpoint to the Chinese global diplomatic blitz, our soft power, has been so eroded by the present failed Administration that I fear it may take years to rebuild it. China will take maximum advantage of this. The question is, can we afford to wait that long?

Emptywheel, I left a response for you on the Berlusconi's Strategy of Tension thread.